The Memory of Blood

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘You acted with questionable legality,’ said May, ‘but we have bigger problems now.’

  ‘Are you going to make an arrest?’ Ray asked.

  ‘You’ll know at the same time as everyone else,’ May replied. ‘I’d make myself scarce if I were you. This place is now off limits.’

  Mona Williams’s body was delivered to Giles Kershaw while Banbury cleared the crime scene. The detectives watched what appeared to be a second Grand Guignol play being performed in front of the proscenium arch, then returned to North London.

  ‘I think we know what we’re dealing with now,’ said Bryant, waving his walking stick at a taxi. ‘Robert Kramer is clearly the target, not the suspect.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because he has a secret, something he hasn’t revealed to us in almost a week of questioning. This secret is so great that someone wants him to suffer very badly. They took his child, and that should have been the end of the matter. Then they went after his money man, his best friend, destroying his financial empire in the process. Kramer knows someone is out to get him. But here’s the interesting thing. Despite his secret being known to another individual, he doesn’t know who his own enemy is. Intriguing, no?’

  ‘A woman,’ said May suddenly.

  ‘Hm. I was thinking about that possibility.’

  ‘The harming of a child by throwing it about. Frightening an old lady, but not intending to kill her. It feels like a woman somehow, one who’d been angered by Kramer’s behaviour. Particularly if we say that Gregory Baine’s death was suicide.’

  ‘I see what you mean. Kramer’s enemy finds out that Mona Williams knows something which can give the game away. But she’s an old lady, she’ll frighten easily—she can be scared into silence.’

  ‘The plan goes wrong. And revenge is not properly dealt. Kramer’s still around and his life continues; nothing seems to touch him. He’s not as broken up over his child as he was meant to be, because he’s not the father. He’s not destroyed by Baine’s death, because for all we know there could be another offshore company designed to protect his finances from Baine. So there could still be another attempt to hurt him.’

  ‘But why doesn’t this enemy simply kill Kramer if he wants revenge?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Where’s the pleasure in that? Someone needs to see Kramer suffer. Merely being rid of him won’t take away that gnawing anger. The killer wants to watch the pain slowly building in the victim’s eyes. Nothing is working out as it was intended to. Hardly anything has gone right. Something else is bound to happen now.’

  ‘Women,’ repeated Bryant. ‘There are four in the case. Della Fortess, the female lead; Ella Maltby, the set designer; Jolie Christchurch, the front-of-house manager; and Judith Kramer.’

  ‘Incredible,’ May marveled. ‘Last week you parked your car to get a bag of boiled sweets and spent the rest of the day trying to remember where you’d left it, but you can remember the name of everyone in the investigation.’

  ‘I have a system for finding Victor now,’ Bryant replied. ‘I only park in places where I upset people. That way I can always find someone who remembers my car. Hang on, I’ve left one female out. Gail Strong.’

  ‘Ah, the disreputable Ms Strong. I’m not sure I believe a word she’s said to me so far. Maybe we should talk to her again.’

  ‘After we’ve grilled Ella Maltby about her scold’s bridle.’ Bryant made a strange sound between a sink gurgling and a cow waking up. This noise usually indicated that he’d had an idea.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve just had another thought. According to my Twentieth-Century British Theatre, when the Lord Chamberlain banned the plays, he destroyed the reputation of the theatre’s owner, who died in penury. You don’t suppose someone at that party was a descendant of the original owner, looking for revenge against Kramer now?’

  ‘Incredible as it may seem, no, I don’t,’ said May.

  ‘Okay, it was just a thought.’

  The car sloshed through gutters filled with rainwater, wending its way into the deepening northern light.

  In the warehouse that had become the headquarters of the PCU, Bryant took one suspect and May took the other. Ella Maltby sat in the common room with her arms folded and her boots turned outwards in a gesture of defiant unhelpfulness.

  ‘The bridle in my props room is one of three we made,’ she explained icily. ‘When Ray brought the scripts to us, we first chose a different play, and it featured a scene where the village gossip was locked into a bridle. Robert was never really happy with the second act, and eventually we junked it in favour of The Two Murderers.’

  ‘What happened to the other two bridles?’

  ‘I imagine they stayed in the props room at the theatre.’

  ‘Aren’t you in charge of that?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t have to keep track of them; they weren’t exactly lethal weapons.’

  ‘They were, as it turned out.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Who had access to the props room?’

  ‘Everyone. I mean, we wouldn’t keep it locked unless there were weapons involved in the production. Anyone who needs to get into the backstage area of the theatre has to sign in at the stage door.’

  ‘So access is strictly limited to cast, crew and theatre staff.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And at the time when Mona Williams was attacked, you say you were—’

  ‘At home. By myself.’

  Bryant had nothing more. Banbury had found no prints on the bridle, and had not been able to lift anything from the stalls carpet. ‘All right, you’re free to go, but don’t go far,’ he told Maltby. ‘At least you could have come up with a decent alibi this time, made up a few friends or something. No wonder you haven’t got any friends. Janice, make her sign something, then kick her back onto the street.’ He wandered into May’s interrogation.

  ‘This reminds me of An Inspector Calls,’ said Neil Crofting. ‘Mona was terribly good in that. I shall miss her. A real trouper. What do you think happened?’

  ‘We’re pretty sure someone tried to intimidate her and went too far,’ May told him. ‘You were by her side at the night of the party. Did she see or tell you anything unusual?’

  ‘Let me think. I’d had rather a lot to drink. She usually gives me far too much information, a running commentary on the state of her innards, what she doesn’t like about the leading lady, how Andrew Lloyd Webber is killing the theatre, why she can’t eat sprouts before a show, that sort of thing. We were like an old married couple.’ He wiped a misted eye. ‘She chattered a lot, the usual tittle-tattle about the company. Mona was a terrible old gossip. Loathed the director, thought he was an idiot. It’s hard to believe she’s gone. She made a lovely Ophelia in her time. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. She had the legs for it, you see.’

  ‘What did she talk about specifically?’ May prompted.

  ‘Well, various people came up to pay their respects—she was a bit of a grande dame, after all, waited in one spot for everyone to circle past her and pay respects like they were greeting a remnant of the Hapsburg Empire, then she relayed the talk on to me. She said Russell was drinking too heavily, Della had a yeast infection, Ray was complaining his nicotine patches didn’t work, Marcus had been seen backstage with Judith, Ella was being a bore about her ex-girlfriend, that sort of thing. But the big scandal was that Robert’s wife and mistress were both in the same room. And I don’t think Judith had an inkling.’

  ‘You know his mistress?’

  ‘It wasn’t common knowledge, but we both knew because we’ve worked with Robert in the past, and we recognised the signs.’

  ‘What sort of signs?’

  ‘The ones that tell you when a man is about to become infatuated again. We were there going over our scenes on the night Robert first met her. And we could tell from the first moment what was going on. You could see the sparks from the stage.’


  ‘Who is his mistress?’

  ‘Gail Strong,’ said Crofting, as if it was obvious. ‘She set her cap at him. A disgraceful display. I suppose he was flattered, a man of his age.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh, a couple of months ago, way before she joined the play. I think she’d been introduced to him through her father. And then at the party I remember Mona saying something that struck me as odd, just before everything went wrong.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘She said, That completes the circle. You know, like La Ronde. And I asked her to explain but she wouldn’t.’

  ‘She meant exactly what she said,’ said May. ‘Gail Strong was seeing Robert Kramer, Kramer’s wife was seeing Marcus Sigler, and then we think Marcus and Gail had sex at the party.’

  ‘But did Marcus and Judith know about Gail?’

  ‘Perhaps not, but somebody does. Did Mona Williams have any enemies?’

  ‘Mr May, you reach a certain age when you don’t have enemies anymore, just people who find you mildly annoying. You become invisible. Mona had got to the point where she only existed onstage.’

  ‘You can’t think why anyone would want to kill her?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  May sat back with a sigh. ‘Arthur, is there anything you want to ask?’

  Bryant was rooting through his pockets, and looked as if he’d been caught out. ‘Ah, yes—I have this written down somewhere but I can’t find it—bladder complaints.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You said she talked to you about her innards. Any bladder complaints?’

  ‘Well, I suppose the usual, at that age.’

  ‘Only it would make sense if she had.’

  ‘Arthur, you’re not making any sense, as usual,’ said May.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said Bryant impatiently. ‘The only reason Mona Williams was threatened was because she knew the killer’s identity. Now, she didn’t know it before the party because the first death hadn’t yet occurred. Maybe she worked it out later, but she saw or heard something at the party that revealed the killer’s identity to her. And at some point this realisation also hit the killer. I seem to remember from the chart Janice gave me that Mona Williams visited the bathroom three times. On several occasions during the evening, there was a queue in the hall. In those kind of situations, people tend to talk to each other. I’m wondering if somebody told her something they shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Well, Mr Crofting, I think we can let you go for now,’ said May. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  Bryant watched the old actor don his coat. ‘I thought you were marvelous in The Crucible. I saw you when I was a child.’

  Crofting eyed Bryant coldly. ‘No, I don’t think it was that long ago,’ he said, and left.

  Bryant trotted off to the kitchen to brew tea, chatting to May as he went. ‘We’re missing something very obvious in this tangle, aren’t we? Something in plain sight. I should have been able to figure it out in an instant. After all, we’re not dealing with a particularly sophisticated killer. Rather the reverse. A baby shaken to death, an accountant knocked over the head and hung, an old woman intimidated. And the crude symbolism of the dolls, everything intended to frighten Robert Kramer—but nothing ever does. Have you spoken to him in the last twenty-four hours?’

  ‘He’s annoyed about the theatre being closed but has negotiated it down to three days. They’ll reopen Tuesday.’

  ‘You see? Nothing touches him. And he leaves nothing to chance. Which brings me to Gail Strong’s father.’

  ‘Her father? What about him?’

  ‘Kramer’s not a nice man, we agree on that? He was horrible to his first wife, he cheats on his second and he has a string of compliant girlfriends who can be relied upon to keep their mouths shut. So why would he choose Gail Strong? She has a high media profile and seems physically incapable of behaving herself. She’s a liability.’

  ‘He’s probably just infatuated with her.’

  ‘He may well be, but if she proved to be a nuisance he’d drop her like a hot brick. He’ll have made sure she knows nothing about his business dealings, but she could still make life very difficult for him.’

  ‘Unless he needs something from her,’ May suggested.

  ‘My thought exactly. He’s not sleeping with her because he’s in love.’

  ‘Then it’s her father he’s after.’

  ‘He introduced them. He’s in charge of building licences. The original licence for theatrical performances would be attached to the building, and if Kramer needed to get the licence of the theatre extended, Gail’s father would be the key to that.’

  ‘But surely if her father finds out that Kramer is having an affair with his daughter, he won’t be disposed to grant a licence application.’

  ‘We don’t know what Kramer is capable of doing. He’ll use her to get what he wants, then dump her. It’s more business than pleasure. I don’t suppose we’ll get any more answers from Kramer or his wife, not unless we allow Jack Renfield to torture them—something he’d probably relish the opportunity to do. I think we need to bring in Gail Strong.’

  PCs Colin Bimsley and Meera Mangeshkar were sent to Gail Strong’s Notting Hill apartment together to bring her in for further questioning. They were sent as a pair because there was a likelihood that Strong would have reporters and photographers hanging around on her doorstep, and someone would have to distract them.

  ‘Have you noticed we get all the crappy jobs?’ Meera complained. ‘Go through the bins, sit on a roof all night, update the reports. Bryant tried to get me to make him a cup of tea the other day, but I told him to bugger off.’

  ‘I don’t mind making him tea. I always feel guilty when he does those big wet puppy eyes and looks helpless.’

  ‘You’re a pushover.’ Mangeshkar swiped herself out through the tube barrier at Notting Hill.

  ‘I don’t know why we couldn’t have taken your Kawasaki,’ said Bimsley.

  ‘Because I didn’t want you pushing yourself up against me every time I braked, thank you. What number is it?’

  Bimsley pointed. A pair of overweight men were loitering outside one of the terraced houses with coffee cups and telephoto lenses.

  ‘Okay, let’s avoid these creeps. See if there’s another way we can get her out of the building.’ Meera punched out Gail’s number on her mobile. ‘No answer. She was there half an hour ago.’ She approached one of the photojournalists. ‘Oi, you waiting to get pictures of Gail Strong?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I’m a police officer, that’s what it is to me. Sling your hook before I run you in.’

  ‘You got no right to order us around.’

  ‘Terrorism Act. This is a High Alert area. I can bang you up without even bothering to invent a reason.’

  The men grumbled, but gathered their equipment together promptly.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Meera called. ‘Did she go out?’

  ‘What, you want our help now?’ The photographer spat at her feet and waddled off.

  ‘Come on.’ They crossed the road to the front porch of the house. Meera checked the bells and rang the top one. They heard it buzz somewhere above their heads. Colin stepped back to examine the top floor windows. ‘No sign of movement. How are we going to get in?’

  ‘Cover me.’ Meera put her elbow through a square of glass and felt for the lock.

  ‘Blimey, Meera, that’s B and E.’

  ‘She could be hurt. What would the old man do?’

  ‘Break in, you’re right.’ Bimsley followed her up the darkened stairway.

  On the fourth floor, they found the door to flat 160D ajar. ‘Someone’s forced the lock.’ Meera pointed to the damaged hasp. The pair advanced cautiously into the dimly lit flat, searching each room. The kitchen and lounge were undisturbed, but someone had recently been here. A Lily Allen CD was still playing with four tracks left to go. ‘Colin, in here.’

  It was ha
rd to tell if the bedroom showed signs of a struggle, or whether Strong was just untidy. Shoes had been kicked off and clothes were scattered over the floor.

  ‘Fire escape, over there,’ said Meera, leading the way to the back of the house. The rear door onto the black iron escape was shut but unlocked.

  Colin studied the back gardens. ‘There’s a gap in the fence. It goes straight out into the road behind. The photographers wouldn’t have seen a thing.’

  ‘You’re forgetting something. She’s trouble. If she’d been abducted she would have made a hell of a noise.’

  ‘She’s small. He could have knocked her out and carried her.’

  ‘Let’s call it in. I’ll get to the neighbours, see if anyone saw anything. Although around here the only people who are ever home are the Filipino nannies.’

  Meera dashed off as Bimsley double-checked the bedroom. ‘Three deaths and a kidnapping,’ grumbled Bimsley. ‘The old man’s going to go nuts.’

  Janice Longbright stood and stretched. She had taken on the Anna Marquand case as a favour to Arthur, but had reached a dead end. If Ashley Hagan hadn’t stolen the girl’s cell phone, who had, and why? She stared at the shopping bag on her desk and tried to imagine what had happened. In desperation, she emptied it out on the desk again. A half-litre bottle of Gordon’s gin, a volume of poetry, a packet of Handi Wipes, some tomatoes, a tin of beans.

  Anna had come up to town and given Arthur his book, then caught the Northern Line south to London Bridge, where she changed to Bermondsey. Leaving the station, she stopped in at Tesco and walked home with her shopping bag, where she was attacked. All pretty straightforward.

  No, not straightforward.

  Her attacker had been after something more. Longbright had a habit of keeping passwords on her mobile. She knew she shouldn’t, but who could remember every user name and code phrase? What if Anna had done the same? What if he had already searched their house? How did he do it, and when? No, that didn’t work, because Rose Marquand never went out, and nobody had broken in. Besides, he had taken Anna’s keys and found out that there was another lock-up, which was why he had gone to the pool. But had he actually found anything?